The present invention relates to techniques for analyzing a body of data. More specifically, the invention relates to techniques that label pixels in an image.
Ullman, S., "Visual Routines," Cognition, Vol. 18, 1984, pp. 97-159, describes a coloring method at pages 103-105. Starting at a given point, the area around it is somehow activated. The activation spreads outward until a boundary is reached, but the activation is not allowed to cross the boundary. Depending on the starting point, either the inside or the outside of a curve, but not both, will be activated. Section 3.4, beginning on page 135, further discusses bounded activation or coloring, indicating that the results may be retained in the incremental representation for further use by additional routines. A sub-figure may be pulled out from its complicated background in this way, as shown and described in relation to FIG. 8. As shown and described in relation to FIG. 9, a boundary may not be entirely continuous, so that incomplete boundaries should have the capacity to block the activation spread. Section 3.4.2, beginning on page 137, describes the use of simple, local operations for coloring, with a first network in which each element excites its neighbors and a second network with a map of the discontinuity boundaries to check the activation spread.